Mission of Honor

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Fleet Admiral Allen Higgins felt a familiar mix of leftover surprise, regret, apprehension, and amusement as he stepped out of the lift car onto the flag bridge of his superdreadnought flagship. He was accustomed to all those feelings, but they'd grown sharper in the weeks since Duchess Harrington had resumed command of Eighth Fleet and headed off for the Haven System.

The surprise stemmed from the fact that he, of all people, held his current position. Allen Higgins had been one of the flag officers Edward Janacek had appointed to a major fleet command. Not only that, he was connected by marriage to the Janacek family. Under the circumstances, he was amazed he'd been retained on active duty at all, and he supposed the fact that he still had a flag bridge to call his own said interesting things about Earl White Haven, since one of Janacek's very first moves on re-assuming the post of First Lord of Admiralty had been to purge the Navy of every single White Haven protйgй and ally. He hadn't even pretended the purge had been largely inspired by his personal hatred for the earl, either. Frankly, Higgins had expected White Haven—with whom he himself had never gotten along very well, having once fallen afoul of the infamous Alexander temper—to wield an equally thorough retaliatory broom. And if he were going to be honest about it, he also had to admit that, based on the Navy's performance in the face of the Havenites' Operation Thunderbolt, White Haven would have been completely justified.

Yet the White Haven Admiralty had shown a surprising degree of tolerance. Possibly because it didn't have much choice. It could hardly have fired every serving (and surviving) flag officer, after all, given the frantic need to expand the Navy once more and the demand for experienced admirals that entailed. Higgins didn't think that was the real explanation, though. Instead, to his considerable surprise, the new Admiralty had contented itself with removing the more outrageously political Janacek appointees and those whose demonstrated performance had proven conclusively that they weren't suitable material for combat commands.

Given the minor fact that Allen Higgins had been the commanding officer on Grendelsbane Station when the Peep offensive rolled over it, he'd expected to find himself on that list of "less than suitable material" officers. After all, he was the one who'd lost several hundred LACs and seven SD(P)s discovering the Peeps did, indeed, have LACs and MDMs of their own. And the one who'd abandoned the system in the face of the overwhelming attack—and, just incidentally, destroyed the nineteen CLACs and no less than seventy-three modern ships-of-the-wall lying helpless in the station's building slips to keep them from falling into Peep hands. And, of course, there was the minor matter of the forty thousand yard workers he'd been unable to take with him, as well. It was the memory of that cataclysmic day which accounted for the strand of regret which wove itself through his emotions at moments like this.

And yet, he hadn't been beached by White Haven after all, despite Grendelsbane. He wondered, sometimes, how much of that was due to the fact that even though he'd been a Janacek appointee, he'd never pretended to be an admirer of Edward Janacek. Or to the fact that he'd been summarily placed on half-pay by Janacek "pending the determination of a full and impartial board of inquiry" as soon as he got back to Manticore. The truth was that the main reason he'd been retained on active duty under Janacek in the first place was that he happened to be married to one of Janacek's cousins. Janacek hadn't kept him on because he valued his services or trusted his cronyism; he'd kept him on as a combined sop to his critics and a way to keep peace in the family.

Higgins had actually felt uncomfortable about serving under Janacek, especially since he knew the reasons the opportunity had been offered to him. He'd silenced his own conscience by arguing that at least some competent flag officers had to remain on duty, but he felt confident Janacek had never really trusted him. Which was probably why he'd found himself assigned to Grendelsbane, when he thought about it, since it had been far enough away to keep him safely out of sight, out of mind.

And which was also why Janacek had decided his cousin-in-law had made an admirable choice when he needed someone to throw under the ground car after Thunderbolt blew Grendelsbane (among other things) into dust bunnies on Janacek's watch. .

In his more cynical moments, Higgins was confident Janacek's obvious decision to scapegoat him was a major factor in White Haven's decision to rehabilitate him. A sort of tit-for-tat way to plant one right in Janacek's eye. On the other hand, White Haven had left him dirtside until the board of inquiry reported on Grendelsbane, and the board's conclusions had been that no one could have done better than Higgins given the numerical odds and the knowledge he'd possessed about Havenite weapons capabilities. So it was certainly arguable that White Haven, Sir Thomas Caparelli, and Sir Lucien Cortez had decided to offer him a command solely on the basis of that report.

In his less cynical moments, Higgins didn't find that difficult to accept. Yet he was still more than a bit bemused by the quirk of fate which had put him in command of Home Fleet and, in the process, converted him into the only "Admiral of the Fleet" currently in Manticoran service.

Of course, he wouldn't have been where he was if not for the massive losses the Royal Manticoran Navy had suffered in the Battle of Manticore. To his considerable astonishment, Allen Higgins had become one of the dozen or so most senior flag officers in the entire Navy in the wake of that brutal winnowing. When Duchess Harrington had relinquished command of Home Fleet to resume command of Eighth Fleet—or, rather, when there'd been enough Manticoran and Alliance ships-of-the-wall to rebuild a Home Fleet in addition to Eighth Fleet—Allen Higgins had found himself replacing her. Well, stepping into her position, since it was unlikely anyone could actually replace her.

Although Higgins respected Alexander-Harrington's accomplishments, he was also one of those officers who was well aware of the role the media had played in creating the legend of "the Salamander." To her credit, she seemed to genuinely attempt to avoid that sort of media adulation, but coupled with her stature on Grayson and her political status as one of the main leaders of the Opposition to the High Ridge Government, it had turned her into the next best thing to a physical avatar of the goddess of war as far as the Manticoran public was concerned. And, for that matter, as far as most of the Navy was concerned. Which had made stepping into her shoes an interesting experience.

It also accounted for some of his current apprehension. After all, no matter how well he did, he was going to find himself being compared to the memory of Sebastian D'Orville, who'd died leading the previous Home Fleet into headlong battle, or of Duchess Harrington, whom Higgins had relieved as Home Fleet's CO, and whose Eighth Fleet had saved the home system from Operation Beatrice. And, if he were going to continue to be honest, part of that apprehension also stemmed from what had happened in Grendelsbane. There was no point trying to pretend the experience hadn't scarred him. He didn't think it had left him doubting his judgment, but it had left him dreading a repeat performance. He would have felt much more comfortable if he'd been able to convince himself lightning didn't really strike twice in the same place. Unfortunately, it did. So instead, he spent his time telling himself disasters like Grendelsbane weren't really lightning bolts, so he didn't have to worry about stupid proverbs.

Which, he reflected, makes me feel ever so much better when I think about it.

His lips twitched as that brought him almost full circle through the cycle of thoughts which always ran through his mind at moments like this. It was fortunate his sense of humor, at least, had survived Grendelsbane and the Battle of Manticore, he supposed. It was a dryer and sometimes more biting sense of humor than it once had been, but it was still there, and he suspected he was going to need it, now that Lacoцn One was in effect. The League wasn't going to be happy when it discovered Manticore had closed the Junction to all Solly traffic. Or that nondiscretionary recall orders had been issued to every Manticoran merchantman in Solarian space. Or, now that he thought about it, that orders had been dispatched to every station commander to take whatever steps seemed necessary to protect Manticoran ships, property, and lives from Solarian action.

No, they weren't going to be very happy about that at all, he thought. In fact, he reflected, as he looked at his flagship's crest, mounted on the flag bridge bulkhead beside the lift doors, a lot of them were going to be taking his flagship's name in vain when they heard about it.

HMS Inconceivable . He wasn't sure what he thought of "inconceivable" as the name for one of Her Majesty's starships, but it was certainly a fitting appellation for his flagship, under the circumstances.

* * *

"I don't suppose you've got that flight schedule for me yet," a patient, long-suffering voice said as Colonel Andrew LaFollet of the Harrington Steadholders Guard stepped through the office door, and he looked at the speaker with an artfully innocent expression.

"Flight schedule?" he inquired blankly. "Which flight schedule would that be?"

His sister glared at him, and the treecat on the end of Miranda LaFollet's desk bleeked a laugh.

"The one," she said with a ferocious glower, "for the trip to Sphinx. You do remember the trip to Sphinx? The one for Claire's birthday?"

"Oh, that schedule!" He smiled at her. "What makes you think I might have it? You're the one in charge of things around here when the Steadholder and Mac are away, not me!"

Miranda glowered some more, but the smile twitching at the corners of her mouth gave her away. After a moment, she gave up. There was no point trying to change her big brother at this point. Besides, she'd be disappointed if she succeeded . . . she thought.

"All right," she said. "You win. I'll make the flight arrangements, but I can't do that until you hand me the security plan. So where is it?"

"Oh, well, I've got that right here," he told her with a chuckle and tossed the chip folio across to her. She missed the catch, but Farragut reached up a long-fingered true-hand and plucked it neatly out of the air.

"Thanks," she told the 'cat as he handed it across to her. "Nice to see that at least some male members of some species are capable of showing a modicum of courtesy," she added, looking rather pointedly at Andrew.

"Ha! He's just sucking up to his celery source!"

Miranda laughed, and Andrew winked at her, then waved casually and headed back out of her office. She smiled after him for a few moments, then shook her head and inserted to the data chip into her reader. A file header appeared on her display, and her smile faded into a frown of intensity as she studied the file's contents.

She supposed it was entirely possible—even likely—that a great many Manticorans would find it more than mildly ridiculous for someone to file a security plan that ran to better than fifty pages just for a day trip to take a ten-month-old baby and his grandmother to his aunt's birthday party. Miranda LaFollet, on the other hand, did not, because the grandmother in question was her Steadholder's mother, and the ten-month-old was Raoul Alfred Alastair Alexander-Harrington, who would someday, Tester willing, be her Steadholder.

Not that she'd be around to see that day. At least, she hoped she wouldn't, she thought with a familiar edge of bittersweetness. She'd been just too old for prolong when the treaty of alliance with Manticore brought it to the planet Grayson. At fifty, she was thirteen years younger than Lady Harrington, but if anyone had simply looked at the two of them, they would have thought the interval was twice as great . . . and in the opposite direction. Miranda would have been more than human if there hadn't been times she resented the extended lifespans Manticorans took for granted, but she'd truly come to terms with it. Or she thought she had, at least. And if neither she nor Andrew would ever be able to receive the prolong treatments, their younger siblings, like her brother Micah, certainly had.

She sat gazing sightlessly at the display for a couple of seconds, then shook her head with a snort. She had more important things to do than sit around brooding, she told herself tartly, and returned her attention to Andrew's plan.

* * *

"—stupidest damned idea I've ever heard of! It's not like we don't have other things—worthwhile things—we could be doing instead, after all! And if anything ever really happens to the station, who the hell's going to have time to run for a frigging life pod in the first place?"

Ensign Paulo d'Arezzo felt a very strong desire to throttle Lieutenant Anthony Berkeley. Unfortunately, he lacked Helen Zilwicki's aptitude for hand-to-hand mayhem. Or perhaps fortunately, given the fact that Berkeley was a full senior-grade lieutenant, which would have brought up all sorts of sticky things about "striking a superior officer, the Star Empire then being in a state of war." He rather doubted a court-martial would feel "because the deceased was such a loudmouthed moron" constituted sufficient justification for violating Article Nine. Although if the members of the court actually knew Berkeley . . . .

"And another thing," the lieutenant went on, waving his right hand, index finger extended to emphasize his point as he shared his insights, "how the hell much did this little brain fart cost? I mean, launching every single pod the station has? Jesus! Just recertifying all of them is gonna take weeks, and you know they're gonna downcheck at least some of them!"

You know , Paulo thought, it was a lot more fun aboard Hexapuma even when people were shooting at us! If Helen had to get herself sent back off to Talbott without me, why couldn't I have at least stayed aboard the ship, like Aikawa? For that matter, why couldn't I have stayed anywhere that would have kept me away from a klutz like Berkeley?

Deep inside, he rather suspected he would have been grumpy anyplace they sent him if Helen wasn't around. That thought was one he tried not to examine too closely, though. It still made him . . . uncomfortable after he'd spent so many years running away from any sort of serious emotional entanglement. But the truth was that her absence left an empty place down inside him—one he'd never realized was there when all he'd been able to think about was the attractive physical "packaging" Manpower, Incorporated, had designed into someone it had intended to sell as a pleasure slave. A sex toy, really.

But, be that as it might, assigning him to work directly under Anthony Berkeley had to come under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. If there'd been any real justice in the galaxy, he'd have been assigned to Admiral Yeager's Research and Development Division, with Captain Lewis. That would have been interesting, especially for someone with Paulo's natural bent for the electronic warfare officer's career track. But, no. In their infinite wisdom, the powers-that-were at the Bureau of Personnel had decided he and Senior Chief Wanderman should get a little hands-on time with the fabrication side. Which, little though he cared to admit it, might actually contain at least a modicum of rationality. It never hurt for an EWO to have at least some familiarity with the nuts and bolts of his hardware, after all. But there had to be some way for him to get that familiarity without putting up with Berkeley!

If only there were some way he could quietly and discreetly leave the small classroom in which their party of evacuees been instructed to wait. Unfortunately, there wasn't one, and Berkeley happened to be the senior officer present, which put him in charge of their small detachment. If Paulo tried to sneak out, the lieutenant would demand to know where he was going, and somehow "anywhere you aren't" didn't seem the most diplomatic possible response. Truthful , yes; diplomatic, no.

"And if we just had to do something this stupid," Berkeley continued, "at least we could have done it when we weren't—"

"Excuse me, Lieutenant," a contralto voice said from the doorway, "but exactly what 'stupid' something did you have in mind?"

Berkeley's mouth shut with an almost audible click, and he spun towards the slender, dark-haired commander standing in the open door with her head cocked to one side.

"I, uh, didn't see you there, Commander McGillicuddy," he said.

"No," Commander Anastasia McGillicuddy agreed pleasantly. "I don't suppose you did. However, I was just passing through when I heard what sounded remarkably like a raised voice. I was down at the end of the hall, you understand, so I wasn't completely certain that was what I was hearing. I decided to find out."

Her smile was as pleasant as her tone, but her brown eyes were cold, and the much taller and bulkier Berkeley seemed to shrink slightly.

"As I drew closer, I realized you were availing yourself of this opportunity to continue the instruction of the junior officers entrusted to your care," she went on. "I was impressed by your apparent vigor. Obviously, you'd been discussing a subject you felt strongly about. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to find out what it was."

"Ma'am, I was just—that is, well . . . ." Berkeley's abortive response trailed off, and despite himself, Paulo actually felt a feeble—very feeble—flicker of sympathy.

He throttled it without difficulty.

"Should I assume, Lieutenant, that you question Vice Admiral Faraday's priorities?" McGillicuddy asked softly.

Berkeley said nothing at all, and her nostrils flared. Then she looked past Berkeley to the junior officers and enlisted waiting in the classroom. She considered them briefly, then returned her attention to Berkeley.

"Since you feel qualified to critique this exercise, Lieutenant," she told him, "I'll arrange for you to present your view of it directly to Captain Sugihara." Berkeley's fair complexion turned considerably fairer at the mention of Captain Brian Sugihara, Rear Admiral Trammell's XO. "In the meantime, I strongly suggest you give some consideration to the appropriateness of your present forum. Especially considering that you happen to be the senior officer present. You might want to spend the time more profitably doing something like . . . oh, I don't know. Considering your report to Captain Sugihara, perhaps. In fact, you might want to give a little thought to whether or not Article Ten figures into your thinking, as well."

Paulo felt his lips trying to purse in a silent whistle as that last salvo landed. Obviously McGillicuddy had heard even more—and was even more pissed off—than he'd thought. From the little Paulo had seen of her, she didn't seem like the sort who normally screamed at a subordinate—even a stupid subordinate—in front of that subordinate's juniors. The fact that Berkeley had ticked her off enough to do that was sufficiently significant on its own, but her last sentence had been so pointed not even Berkeley could miss the implication. Article Ten was the article which forbade actions or speech prejudicial to discipline and the chain of command. If Berkeley was brought up on that charge and it went into his personnel record . . . .

McGillicuddy held Berkeley's eyes for another few seconds, then nodded, glanced once at the breathlessly watching group of JGs, ensigns, and enlisted, and left without another word.

* * *

"Well, I'm undoubtedly the most unpopular officer in Weyland ," Claudio Faraday said with an air of satisfaction. "For that matter, I might well be the most unpopular officer in the entire Beta subsystem!"

"I think that might be going just a bit far, Sir," Marcus Howell replied. "At least as far as the entire subsystem's concerned. Although, now that I think about it, they probably aren't too fond of you down on Gryphon at the moment, either."

"Nope. And I imagine I may be hearing a little something from the bean-counters back at Admiralty House, too." Faraday sounded a bit more serious, but his air of contentment was unabated. "We've probably just written off—what? ten percent?—of the station's life pods, after all."

"Not to mention shutting down the entire R&D section until we get the pods recertified, Sir," Howell pointed out respectfully.

"Oh, thank you for recalling that little detail to my attention, Marcus!"

"One of the things chiefs of staff are for, Sir."

Faraday glowered at him, but the vice admiral didn't seem able to work up much wattage. Then he allowed his chair to come upright, planted his elbows on his desk, and leaned forward over his folded forearms.

"Actually," he said much more seriously, "the downtime bothers me most. But I don't expect Admiral Hemphill to kick up much dust over it. I know most people think of her as the tech weenies' tech weenie, but she's got a lot better understanding of the realities than some of her research people out here do." He shook his head. "Frankly, I think quite a few of them haven't figured out they're actually in the Navy and hence subject to the Service's little foibles, like making sure they're up to date on relevant emergency procedures. And even for most of the others, the thought that anyone might possibly want to hurt them never enters their minds! Which doesn't even consider the fact that genuine accidents can happen even aboard the most modern space station."

Howell nodded. He wasn't sure he agreed with Faraday's decision to actually evacuate the space station and send all but a tiny caretaker detachment down to the planet Gryphon. He was perfectly ready to admit that the readiness state of Weyland 's disaster and evacuation planning had been, well, disastrous, though. And Faraday was certainly correct about the possibility of accidents. There hadn't been a major catastrophe aboard any of the Star Empire's main industrial platforms in decades, but there'd been several moderately severe accidents, and catastrophe was always possible, however improbable it might seem. If that had happened aboard Weyland a few weeks earlier, personnel losses might have been cataclysmic.

The series of of simulations Faraday had ordered had created a great deal of anger and frustration. At the same time, his grumpy subordinates had finally been forced to accept that he was serious about trying to get them off the station alive if something went wrong. They might not have been happy about it, but they'd at least started going through the motions with something resembling efficiency.

Of course, they'd known it was only going to be simulations , which would let them get back to work on more serious concerns after a half-hour or so of nonsense. Until this morning, that was, when the exercise had concluded with the words "this is no sim."

Which was basically all the warning they'd gotten before their life pods blasted out of the station and headed for Gryphon . . . whose authorities had had no more notion they might be coming than they'd had that they might be going . The planetary authorities' disaster and evacuation planning for Weyland had come up a little short, as well, with the station's personnel jammed into whatever improvised holding stations they could come up with while they tried to figure out what to do with them. Since they were supposed to already have detailed plans for doing just that, the current panetary FUBAR probably wasn't going to make Vice Admiral Faraday very popular with them when their efficiency reports—or their civilian equivalents—got written.

"All in all, a good day's work," Faraday concluded. "I figure we should be able to start re-docking the fabrication section's pods in a couple of days. I want to start there, at any rate."

"May I ask why, Sir?" Howell asked with a slight sense of trepidation.

"Indeed you may," Faraday replied with a sharklike smile. "While we're re-docking Fabrication's pods and recertifying Research's pods, you and I, and Admiral Yeager, and a security team from ONI which just happens to've been in-system when I called this little exercise, are going to do a walk-through. We'll be sending an updated backup down to Gryphon for storage just in case. And we're also going to see just how many of Yeager's worker bees remembered to secure their classified data properly before heading for their pods."

"Ouch!" Howell's wince wasn't entirely feigned, and Faraday chuckled nastily.

"I'm already unpopular with them, Marcus. I might as well go whole hog and kill as many birds as possible while I'm chucking stones. And I already warned Yaeger this was coming. I won't say she's looking forward to it, but she understands why I'm doing it and that I'm not going to deliberately collect any more heads than I have to.

"Which, unfortunately, doesn't mean some aren't going to roll anyway, of course."

Howell nodded again. Some people never seemed to understand that military efficiency demanded a certain degree of ruthlessness. Military commanders weren't—or shouldn't be, at any rate—in the business of winning popularity contests. They should be in the business of promoting the efficiency, which definitely included the survivability, of the units under their command. Not only was it a CO's duty to prune away deadwood, but it was also his responsibility to make all the personnel under his command aware of the fact that he'd do that pruning, with ruthless dispatch, whenever it was required. Punishing those who screwed up in order "to encourage the others" had been an axiom of military discipline for so many centuries because, whether it was nice or not, it worked.

Punishment may not be the best possible motivator, but it's one that works , Howell thought. And it's one any effective officer has to have in his toolbox for the times when it's the only one that will. And at least Claudio understands the nuts and bolts of positive motivation, as well. Now that he's got their attention, at least .

The chief of staff's lips twitched on the brink of a smile, but he suppressed it and paged to the next item on his electronic notepad.

"All right, Sir. I'm going to assume from what you've just said that you want us to give the immediate priority to getting the fabrication section's life pods back aboard. Having said that, though, there's the question of Engineering. In particular—"

* * *

Millions upon millions of kilometers from Vice Admiral Claudio's day cabin, shoals of missile pods continued to bore through space at twenty percent of the speed of light, and the visible disks of the star called Manticore-A and Manticore-B grew steadily larger before them.